The Arabs and Islam – 1
THE THING that most distinguishes ‘primitive peoples’ or those dubbed ‘pre-historic’ is the relationship of the unconscious that binds them…
Islamist terrorism: active, or reactive? – 1
AMID PRESENT DAY events associated with terrorist operations carried out by Muslim extremists, it has become customary for the political…
Atheism and apostasy in Islamist discourse
IN THE NEWSPAPERS IN SUDAN not long ago it was reported that the imam and preacher of the Al-Nur mosque…
The reform of religious discourse – fact or fiction?
DAMAGE REPAIR DOES NOT in itself add anything substantially new, nor does it transform anything into anything else. It merely…
Turning back to Ali Abd al-Raziq
The last Ottoman caliph Sultan Mehmet VI exiting the Dolmabahçe Palace in 1924 AT THE TIME the decision to abolish…
Our need for Enlightenment thinking
WHENEVER DARKNESS sets in there is a need for light. Our societies today are seeing the rise of forces that…
In praise of Orientalism!
I MEAN OF COURSE academic Orientalism, not the superficial, politicised Orientalism associated with colonial administration from the 19th century to…
Intellectual self-isolation and the prospects of constructing a culture – 1
HUMAN THOUGHT constitutes the basis upon which a society is built, whether the society be primitive and enveloped in totemistic…
Isis didn’t just fall from the sky
THERE ARE MANY factors behind the emergence of the phenomenon of Islamic violence, including political, economic, social and psychological ones,…
On the punishment for Apostasy
IN A BOLD ARTICLE published by the Al-Ra’y al-ʽĀm newspaper on April 26, 2011, Professor ‘Alī Muhammad al-Hasan Abū Qināya…